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I’m amused at these statements these ‘wannabe’ pirates make to justify piracy. A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know or justifying it.
I know why I do it & I don’t want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.
You’ve just let the world know you’re pirating though
oops lol
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Because for some piracy isn’t simply about being a cheapskate but also about activism
Theres some truth to this, but a lot of people do use this as a shield against the general cultural acceptance that piracy is stealing or otherwise morally underhanded. I do it, but I don’t have any illusion I’m one of the activists. I just get indignant and refuse to pay someone for content or entertainment who I think is damaging to the medium or predatory in general. I feel like if I really wanted to make a statement, I just wouldn’t consume their work at all – but life is short and I want to have my cake and eat it too.
It’s possible to do both, I consume plenty of pirated media simply because it’s unavailable due to pathetic capitalist imposed digital distribution limitations and lack of equitable paid access.
I also consume other pirated media because I wouldn’t spend my resources for access because I don’t yet know the value of the content and won’t pay just for an opportunity to be disappointed, been there enough times to have learned that lesson. I’m happy to spend my time to find out your media sucks, but not my money, because that’s also my time with the addition that I’ve put actual effort into converting it into fungible assets.
I also deliberately pirate media that I would pay for and do understand the value of, both because I can’t always afford to purchase said product from a company making billions of dollars in exploitative corporate profits and because I have no interest in caring about that over my own personal satisfaction in life.
Wouldn’t it achieve more to boycott things instead? If you won’t even give up watching a tv show, you aren’t an activist you are just complaining on the internet.
Your wrong. It’s what Jesus did, when the baker and fisherman couldn’t meet market demand.
I don’t want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.
No, you just need everyone to know you don’t care about sounding/looking cool to sound/look cool. Totally different.
Too cool to be cool syndrome.
How did you do formatting injection in your username?
On the website you can modify your user display name with any font set you like. I used a random fancy font website and simply copy and pasted.
Nice, thanks!
I believe its just a display name, which I assume probably doesn’t have as more lax rules on valid characters (such as emojis) than usernames do.
So true! Here, have some internet points and validation!
“A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know” While posting “I do it & I don’t want some validation…”
As much fun as setting up a torrent box is, being an argumentative asshole is even better.
You’re so right! Here have an internet point.
Especially when the statement makes no sense
You just said admitted to pirating, you little muppet.
I think some still feel some level of guilt about it and naturally, whether consciously or subconsciously, rationalize it with ideas like this. I guess the progression from that is posting about it to show that “yes I pirate, but I’m not a bad person because rationalization”.
Pirating is like church sins, less about avoiding causing harm and more about preserving hierarchy and tradition, even though abuses and theft by intellectual property holders cause way more harm and economic cost than infringement, by multiple orders of magnitude.
Until we live in a world where people have equal access to information and essential technology piracy is a moral imperative.
Should something which costs a few hours worth of work in the developed word cost three weeks worth of work in a less developed country, just to make a publishing company worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a few extra bucks? Of course not!
Every other argument is a moot point to me. If I hadn’t pirated Photoshop and other software when I was a poor kid I wouldn’t have the six figure career I have today. The ultrarich steal from us every day in more ways than I can count. Maybe when they start being held accountable I will start caring about their bottom line.
Here I am wondering why there is still a downvote button in the YouTube comments… it does nothing!
The same reason that a lot of crosswalks have fake buttons. So you feel like you have control.
While simultaneously undermining your sense of trust in the world
and why elevators have non functioning close buttons
Some elevators.
All the ones near me have fully functional close buttons.
Actually it’s worse than nothing. Youtube promotes comments based on engagement, so while only an upvote increases the tally, voting at all still makes it more visible.
Do we really need excuses for pirating media?
I pirate movies because I think digital access to them is overpriced, goes to the copyright holder instead of the creators, it’s convenient and most importantly because I can.
I can’t pirate going to the cinema, nor can I afford to build my own, therefore I gladly pay to have a seat and enjoy a movie there.
Edit: I thought this may be relevant to the movies example I gave. I don’t think movie studios, giving nothing back to society after massive profits are the ones we should debate the morals of stealing with.
But all of those are excuses?
Can we not become subreddit by posting this shitty screenshots trying to justify our reasons? Just share your media and enjoy it.
what do you mean trying to justify? discussion of shitty anti consumer tactics in digital media is perfectly valid
A screenshot of some comment is not really discussion though. This is a pretty base level understanding of the concept, which is why I say it’s more cope then actual discussion.
This is one of the most popular posts this week here with more than 4 HUNDRED comments. I don’t know what you view as a discussion but I think this was a pretty successful attempt at creating one.
I will say this thread had way more discussion then I was expecting when I originally posted this. My point about the screenshot still stands, I would much prefer we discuss something new related to sharing media, instead of recycling the same discussion about why its justified to copyright infringe.
I am stealing this line for future references
I think this logic is silly.
Employers don’t own you, so witholding wages for services you provided isn’t stealing. Getting a haircut and not paying isn’t stealing.
I think the better justification is: rights holders make it a pain in the arse to access content affordably, so fuck you, just going to steal it.
You’re only partly right. You example services. Of course it is not possible to own services. Piracy is only applicable to products. The point of the Twitter guy is, that companies intentionally stop selling their software etc. as products to sell you the same thing as a service, so that you cannot own it.
Not only that. Remember when Sony said that you don’t own the PS4 you bought for several hundred bucks but just purchased the right to use it as intended so you’re not allowed to tinker with it and for example install another operating system or figure out how their security works.
That’s what is meant by buying is not owning anymore.
I could go on about cars with subscriptions for heated seats that are already installed but not turned on etc.
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I just want to point out to anyone who thinks this is a viable legal defence, It isn’t.
Of course it isn’t. Copyright laws were written by the same kind of people who decided that corporations gets to “people.”
galaxy brain
That’s my YouTube comment. You and so many others are making me feel like a badass. 😎
The real piracy was the friends we made on the way.
And also the cargo ships I robbed.
The real friends were the piracy we undertook along the way.
Remember: friends come and go, but pirated media is forever (as long as you have good backups).
Our current system of copyright is flawed and only serves the interests of corporations.
This is inaccurate. You are not buying it (the media), you are buying the right to stream it (as long as the seller provides the media as a stream). You don’t “buy” a movie unless you are paying for it’s ownership, which would be millions of dollars. For physical releases you buy the disk and the right to watch it under certain conditions (DRM). And you generally don’t have a right be able to “buy” or have access to all media.
But all that doesn’t automaticly make it amoral.
this comment is gonna be downvoted to helledit: There are probably gonna be more responces, so this will address everything else I have to say. What I wrote is how things are legally, more or less. I don’t like that either. I do consider piracy stealing (under current laws) and morally right. Stealing is just not that great term for digital stuff. Please don’t try to (uselessly) sway me and don’t infight
That’s kind of their point, because we are not in fact buying the media the argument is that piracy has some moral element. Put another way there is no option to own it outside of piracy.
this meme is a criticism of that. it shouldn’t be like that. if I buy a chair, I own the chair. I can then choose to sit on it, burn it, or give it to my neighbor, whatever. if I buy a movie, it’s suddenly not like that – but not because of some inherent quality that would make it impossible, but only because they say it is like that. but they have one weakness: it’s only like that if we actually stick to those rules. they’re all arbitrary anyway! we can therefore treat a bought movie just as it should be: a physical copy that we actually own. we can then decide to watch it, to lend it to our neighbor, to play it for everybody to see on the street, to cut it and remix it and do something new with it. will they come and claim we’ve “pirated” their media? yes of course, but this is nonsensical, dead law, that has to be broken again and again by just – ignoring it, and making it not so. if I buy a movie, I do own the movie, and the company that says otherwise can get fucked. that’s what this is about.
For physical releases you buy the disk and the right to watch it under certain conditions (DRM).
I’d like to point out German law (maybe this expands to EU and other countries) with traditional media.
Traditionally you bought movies and music on physical discs. You had a guaranteed right to be able to sell it to other people, as well as make personal copies of it for private use/backups.
DRM has always tried to oppose this right. And obviously, in the last decade(s) a lot went into service-oriented streaming and temporary access instead of owning even on a partial or theoretical level.
If I’ve bought the right to play the game, what’s “the game” that I’m entitled to if they decide to take away what makes it the thing I agreed to have access to?
There are lots of cars you can’t get parts for dude.
There aren’t literally any cars that I can’t get parts for.
What is your opinion on the following argument defending piracy, as in copyright infringement: “Piracy can’t be stealing if paying for it isn’t owning”
As an artificial intelligence, I don’t have personal opinions or feelings. However, I can provide an analysis of the argument. This assertion appears to be examining the complex relationship between ownership, copyright, and piracy. While it’s true that purchasing certain types of media doesn’t confer full ownership rights in the traditional sense (you cannot replicate and distribute a DVD you bought, for instance), it doesn’t necessarily justify piracy. From a legal perspective, piracy is considered a form of theft as it involves the unauthorized use or distribution of copyrighted material. The argument could be seen as an attempt to redefine or question these understandings, but that doesn’t necessarily change how they’re treated by the law.
ChatGPT: Your argument is invalid because it doesn’t change the legal reality of things.
Me: The legal reality needs changed.
You got it
You know, there is less ethical angst over making a copy of something you can ONLY rent vs something you can buy.
However, both options are stealing under most laws!
Nonsense, paying doesn’t always mean you get to own it. I would understand the excuse more if you let’s say bought a game on Steam, but then Steam went away forever and you lost the game and you don’t want to pay for it again. But by that time the game would be super cheap anyway… Well, unless it was now unavailable, then piracy is the only solution to actually getting it.
